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Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth: Could Frank Field start a fightback?

The Birkenhead MP could stand as an independent following the anti-Semitism Labour row (Image: GETTY)

ANYONE with any concern for the way our country is run will have been saddened by the rejection of the Labour whip by Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead for almost 40 years. And yet that regret must be tempered with complete understanding.

Mr Field is a thoroughly honourable man who has been deliberately and cynically targeted by a core of ultra-Corbynistas in his constituency association despite having a 25,000 majority at the last election.

This was because he objected to the anti-Semitism now rife throughout Labour and unrebuked by Jeremy Corbyn himself.

Mr Field is not even Jewish.

Behind the campaign against him in Birkenhead is of course Momentum, whose march towards total takeover of a once-honourable party remains virtually unopposed by the chicken livers who make up the bulk of the MPs who take the Labour whip.

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He might be wise to resign as an MP, forcing a by-election, then stand in it as an independent.

So large is his personal following in Birkenhead that he would probably win it – even more likely if the Tories and Lib Dems (who haven’t a cat in hell’s chance anyway) declined to stand against him.

That could trigger a real fightback against the extremists and political thugs of Momentum and their attempts to take over the party at constituency level and railroad through the deselection of real Labour MPs.

As with Spartacus, it sometimes take just one with guts to inspire the dormant majority.

Finally a Brexit breakthrough

But reports are coming in that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is softening his attitude towards this country and might even contemplate a concession or two.

A crocodile with a heart of gold? Er… no.

Barnier has his own bosses and the two most powerful are Merkel of Germany and Macron of France.

They rule the roost and most of the other 25 follow because the Big Two control the subsidy handouts.

But each has serious and growing problems at home

Angela Merkel fronts a fragile coalition in Germany and is facing an election soon (Image: GETTY)

Merkel is facing autumn elections – provincial – but the auguries are that her official opposition (she governs with a fragile coalition) the Alternative for Germany party might surge again. It is anti-EU. More to the point, awareness is spreading across the Channel that they too will suffer massive damage unless there is a trade agreement.

Macron is the same. The polls (all we have between elections) show his popularity has plunged and the awareness of the economic damage France would also suffer if the EU’s so-far hardline opposition to moderation in Brussels leads to a no-deal Brexit, is rising.

Over here Mrs May’s Chequers-sourced scuttle is dead as a dodo.

Our sense of self-worth is stiffening and it looks as if we could go for a Canada-plus formula, giving us back our sovereignty (adieu to EU rules) while leaving trade almost untouched. Dominic Raab is the man to watch.

There’s not a lot of cerebral matter out there on planet celeb

As a self-confessed nerd for general knowledge quizzes, I used to enjoy Eggheads on BBC Two. Then they moved to a new format – Celebrity Eggheads.

Facing the five professional and amazingly knowledgeable quizzers are now five “celebs” of whom I have never heard but mostly come from showbiz or media.

Alas, in this country the phrases “celeb” and “thick as a plank” appear synonymous, so they are convincingly crushed by the in-house team, which is boring.

The rival Chase quiz has long adopted the Celebrity Chase formula with four “celebs” taking on a single professional.

Here the guests are uniquely from showbiz or sport – two activities where brains are absolutely not required.

In show after show the “celeb” team are so desperately thick it is embarrassing to sit at home and think “these are my fellow countrymen”.

Though the guests are supposed to be competing for charity, most chicken out of the worthwhile cash prizes to settle for miserable sums and in the final head-to-head are effortlessly wiped out anyway – all presided over by the unctuously sycophantic Bradley Walsh who tells them they are quite fantastic.

They are – but not in the way he means.

If the pre-show vetting committee would only select intelligent contestants with a bit of bottle, there might be a real competition with some serious prize money leaving the studio.

But that is not the intention, which is to ensure that an irreducible amount of prize money ever leaves that studio.

Take away University Challenge and Mastermind and most of the residue are pathetic beyond belief. The punters do not realise it but they are not there to triumph but to provide self-humiliation as in the manner of the medieval stocks or pillory.

That, it seems, is entertainment.

People gathering at a memorial for the Manchester Arena victims in Trafalgar Square, London (Image: GETTY)

Brainwashing the low-lifes

Since the military crushing of the death cult Islamic State in its homelands of Iraq and Syria, we have noticed a change in tactics.

Here in the West there has been an outbreak of instances where the terrorist has acted alone, taking a car, van or truck and driving it at a crowd of helpless pedestrians.

Most of the perpetrators have been captured alive – which permits interrogation and analysis.

What has emerged is not that the killers are deeply devout scholars of the Koran or total abstainers from alcohol, nightclubs or sleazy bars.

They have acquired the kill-lust after conversion from hate preachers either locally or online.

Delve a bit deeper and it appears that before “conversion” of their tiny brains they were societal failures within their own communities, often with a history of low-job employment (if at all) and years of substance abuse – booze or dope, both forbidden by the Koran.

In other words, the killer-cult is really scraping the barrel.

Donald Trump appears to be surrounded by enemies (Image: REUTERS)

Sniper aiming at The Donald

Details of the trials, tribulations and travails of Donald Trump continue to drift across the Atlantic but it looks as if a pattern is emerging.

One after the other the slow but relentless Robert Mueller – once the sixth director of the FBI – continues to pick off the former servants and intimates of the man in the White House. It is an established tactic for bringing down one of the high and the mighty.

Supporters, servants, intimates and one-time fans of the target are picked off as if by sniper fire.

In this case Mr Mueller has gone for lawyer, accountant, finance director and several business partners, first securing enough to charge them with indictable offences meriting a no-choice prison term, scaring the seven bells out of them, and then persuading them to turn state’s evidence.

The porn actress Stormy Daniels is an added extra.

In this manner, like an old bull elephant, the target is isolated in an empty landscape until the cross-hairs can settle on its forehead.

It takes time and patience but Robert Mueller has both.

It is extraordinarily difficult to bring down a sitting president in America but it looks as if this is both the aim and the tactic.